Evangelion 2021
by Kraven Ergeist
Summary: This is a story that takes place in the year 2021. How will things differ, now that all the characters from the original series have aged by six years? How much higher will the stakes be raised now that NERV and SEELE have had six more years to scheme and prepare? How will the pilots handle the trials of Evangelion now that they are all adults? Implied SXR, hints of other pairings.


**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Evangelion 2021**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

This is a story that takes place in the year 2021.

How will things differ, now that all the characters from the original series have aged by six years? How much higher will the stakes be raised now that NERV and SEELE have had six more years to scheme and prepare? How will the pilots handle the trials of Evangelion now that they are all adults?

Sometimes, the person you think you are as a child is not the same person as the one you become as an adult.

Sometimes, the person you think you are as a child only magnifies over time as you become the person you truly are.

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

Shinji sipped his coffee as he stared at his computer screen, watching the lab results compile in front of him. It was his third week working on this particular project, and already he was noticing patterns develop in the wave-forms that his department's instruments had been picking up all across the eastern coast of Japan. As an assistant research analyst at Virotronic, it was his job to sift through the miles and miles of data that his company received from their off-shore monitoring stations for any discrepancies and red flags. Most of the other technicians found this to be an arduous task, but Shinji was able to manage it by converting all the data into sound bytes and listening to them in sequence. Spending as much time as he had focusing on spikes in the sound data had allowed him to identify which fluctuations in the visual feed to look out for, and already he was seeing more of these spikes emerge.

If this kept up, he mused in apprehension, the harmonic convergences would most likely result in actual, physical disruptions to the eastern seaboard, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, or even volcanic activity. Such occurrences had never been documented as being related to or even caused by such sub-harmonic activity, though of course there were plenty of theories. It was not mere sound-waves that his department recorded, it was the vibrations within the very depths of the Earth, and how they correlated. If his findings were accurate, with a little bit of trial and error, they just might be able to accurately predict seismic activity days or even weeks before they occurred. Though the more Shinji looked at the incoming data, the more he was seeing convergences popping up in one particular area, and at an alarmingly increasing rate.

Of course, there were times that he had to remind himself that he was still only an intern here at Virotronic, and that perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. He was fortunate to even have this position, being a second-year at New Todai University, and he should not be concerning himself with the big issues that the people upstairs got paid much more money to ponder. Still, Shinji couldn't help but concern himself as time after time, the data seemed to correlate with his theory.

The most irritating part, however, was how little attention his superiors seemed to be paying to the issue.

"Hey, new guy!" came a shout, interrupting Shinji's concentration.

He looked up from his screen in irritation - though his computer was still compiling data and wouldn't be ready to convert its findings into sound for several minutes - and saw his supervisor, Mr. Yamada, a bespectacled man who seemed incapable of ever smiling, leaning into his work area. Shinji's cubicle was sparsely decorated and strictly functional, a telephone, pencil-case, stapler and tape dispenser on one side, and his computer and listening equipment on the other.

"You got an appointment or something?" Mr. Yamada asked pointedly, staring down his nose at the intern.

Shinji tried his best not to look like someone with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"Not that I know of, Sir," Shinji replied honestly, turning his chair to face his supervisor, suddenly curious.

Mr. Yamada did not look amused. "Are you scouting for a new job?"

Shinji's hands came up. "What? No Sir!"

The supervisor looked like he was ready to talk Shinji's ear off when a woman in a red coat and beret strode right past the man and let herself into Shinji's cubicle.

"Thank you, Mr. Yamada," she said absently, as if the man meant nothing more to her than a fly on the wall, her eyes fixed on Shinji. "Now if you'll excuse me please, Mr. Ikari and I have some business to conduct."

Shinji stood up automatically and bowed. The air of authority this woman carried with her, and the way his supervisor shied away from her, giving her as much space as he could, left no question as to her position within the upper echelons. Whoever this woman was, she carried power. And it was all Shinji could do not to begin sweating. He wasn't sure why she was here, but if anything he had done had provoked this meeting, it was either very good, or very, very bad.

"Ma'am," Mr. Yamada said nervously. "This man is my intern. I would appreciate it if you could schedule such meetings with-"

"Thank you, Mr. Yamada," the woman repeated forcefully. "But I'm here on NERV business."

Now all Shinji could do was sweat. Bad. Definitely bad. There wasn't a single employee at Virotronic who didn't know the name NERV. The infamous paramilitary organization was one of the company's chief financial supporters.

His father's company.

Mr. Yamada went rigid as a board and swallowed hard.

"Y-Yes, Ma'am," he said hesitantly, before bowing. "Please excuse me."

He hurriedly left the cubicle, leaving Shinji, still bowing and staring at the woman's boots.

The woman let out a gentle sigh, before relaxing her stance.

"You may dispense with the formalities, Mr. Ikari," the woman said, not impatiently, but clearly in no mood for delays. "You've done nothing wrong."

Shinji lifted his head and looked up at the woman, and only then realized just how beautiful she was, in that fiery, dangerous sort of way that only a high ranking officer of a paramilitary organization (as the badge on her shoulder clearly indicated) could be.

Shinji drew in his breath, and put on his best customer relations' smile.

"Okay then," he said, nervously. "So how can I help you, Miss...?"

"Katsuragi," she said, removing her beret. "Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director for NERV."

Shinji inclined his head, impulsively. His instincts had been right on the money.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Katsuragi," Shinji said, lifting his head. "Is there...anything I can do for you?"

The woman took a step closer and Shinji felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He would have backed up, but there was no room in that cramped cubicle to retreat to, so he simply stiffened as Misato placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

"Mr. Ikari," she breathed hurriedly. "Your life is in danger."

Color drained from Shinji's face as he stared blankly at the wall.

"Wh-wha...?"

"In about five minutes, you're going to get a call from your department manager," Misato explained in a conspiratorial manner. "You're going to be reassigned to Virotronic's Tokyo-3 branch."

"How..." he stuttered. "How do you know this?"

"Because my boss is the one who gave the order," she whispered. "You are no doubt under the impression that NERV is one of your company's strongest financial supporters, but as of this morning, Virotronics is now a wholly owned subsidiary of NERV."

Her grip on his shoulder tightened.

"But that's not what's important right now," she hissed. "Shinji - if you remain here, they will come after you."

Shinji's mouth was dry, and his eyes were wide as he spoke with a tremulous voice.

"What...?" he stammered in disbelief. "Who?"

"Enemies of NERV," Misato said. "The kind of people you don't want to mess with."

Shinji was trembling. Were this coming from anybody else, he would have written this off as a prank. He had been terrified that he had inadvertently stepped on someone's toes at NERV, and that this lady had come to give him a slap on the wrist, but now it seemed that things were spiraling off somewhere far more serious.

"Rest assured, we won't let anything happen to you," she explained. "But you must do exactly as we say. Accept your manager's offer of reassignment, and proceed to Tokyo-3 as you normally would. Our people will meet at the station when you arrive, and you will be escorted into protective custody."

Despite this being the personal assurance from a leading member of NERV, the promise did not fill Shinji with an abundance of confidence. His head was still spinning from all this. That morning when he had woken up, it had been just another day. And now...

"Why...why would someone want me dead?" he breathed in a hoarse voice.

"For the same reason we want you alive," Misato said, still leaning to his ear. "And I can assure you, Shinji - NERV usually gets what it wants."

He had been staring dumbly at the cubicle wall before him, but something in Misato's voice made him turn his gaze towards her. She had an earnest look in her eyes that somehow made it seem like this was more than just a milk run for her. There was a sincerity to her gaze that made him believe that she meant every word that she was saying.

He had no idea what was happening, but whatever was going on, he was convinced that this woman had his best interests at heart, at least.

"My time's up," Misato breathed, before pulling away from him, and for some reason, Shinji didn't want her to go. "Remember, accept the reassignment and head to Tokyo-3. We will make contact with you as soon as we are able to. Good luck, Mr. Ikari."

Shinji was about to speak when his phone abruptly rang, and he jumped, startled by the unexpected noise. He returned his eyes to where Miss Katsuragi had been, but she had already left.

His phone rang again, and Shinji let out tremulous breath, before slumping back down into his chair.

What had he gotten himself into?

By the third ring, he picked up the phone.

"Hello?" he said, before straightening up automatically at the voice on the other line.

"Ikari," he heard the sound of Mr. Kojiro, his department manager. "Could I see you in my office please?"

* * *

The next day, Shinji found himself on the bullet train bound for Tokyo-3. He hadn't slept at all the night before, and as bleary-eyed as he was now, he was unable to catch any sleep on the train either. There was just too much on his mind, and his nerves were fried thinking of all the possible explanations and outcomes. He had taken this position at Virotronic as part of a work-study program offered at New Todai, and had been under the impression that he would be spending the duration of the semester working there. Now, less than two months into it, he was being asked to pack up his belongings and go into protective custody, and for what? He was just an intern! He didn't _know_ anything that would make him valuable or dangerous to anyone!

But NERV was not to be trifled with. Everyone in Japan knew this. Ever since the chaos of Second Impact, after the UN had stepped in to take charge, the organization known as NERV had made itself known as a titan of industry and technology. Most of the success of Japan was largely due to the technological innovations of NERV and its MAGI computer system. Hell, there wouldn't even _be_ companies like Virotronic were it not for the contributions of NERV.

Unfortunately, it seemed that whatever was going on in the background had somehow gotten Shinji tangled up in all of this, and it was all he could do to keep his head above water.

Aboard the Shinkansen bullet train, still sleep deprived, Shinji decided that he should at least get some work done if he was not going to be getting to sleep anytime soon. So he opened his laptop, and booted up his harmonic convergence software. He had written the program himself to make his job easier. He was rather proud of of the application, if he was being completely honest with himself. It was simple and elegant. It took the numeric and visual data compiled by Virotronic's monitoring stations and converted it into various pitches to indicate certain variables. Higher pitches indicated faster rhythms, and lower pitches just the opposite. He had showed the program to his supervisor, and Mr. Yamada had seemed unimpressed, and had told him simply to get on with his work.

Shinji had not been dissuaded, however, and had put neatly compiled reports onto his supervisor's desk _days_ ahead of his peers. He had consistently out-performed any of his co-workers, but had not heard a single word of praise for his efforts. Maybe he was showing off - he had often heard that no one liked a show-off - but even after he had showed his fellow interns how to use his program to speed up production, none of them could seem to get the hang of it. It seemed they just did not have the ear to pick up the tiny differences and inconsistencies that Shinji could when listening to the various frequencies. But Shinji could hardly be faulted for that, could he?

He did not have high enough quality headphones to do a thorough reading of his latest batch of data, and even if he did, the smooth and silent train still generated just enough background noise to interfere with anything he could try to pick up. But that did not stop him from picking up on the visual queues - any spike over a certain level was an automatic red flag. In fact, he had even added a subroutine to his program to automatically re-draw any such spikes in red to make them stand out. Already, he had picked out more than a dozen spikes, almost twice what he had found yesterday! Whatever these spikes were indicating, they were increasing at an alarming rate!

So absorbed in his work, Shinji did not even acknowledge the other passengers around him. He took no heed to the two men in suits who sat across from him, each reading a newspaper, or the woman in the trench coat and wide brimmed hat who was reading a hard-backed book next to him.

Then a tiny whisper reached his ear.

"There are six armed men in this train car, Mr. Ikari," the whisper said.

Shinji went white as a sheet. He glanced to the woman sitting in the aisle seat next to him. She had pale skin, wore a pair of reading glasses under a wide brimmed hat that matched the charcoal trench coat she wore, with black pants and a heavy pair of boots peeking out from underneath, and appeared to be engaged in nothing more than the book she held before her, a pair of fingerless gloves on her hands.

"If you wish to make it off this train alive, then you will do exactly as I say," he heard the whisper again.

It was definitely coming from the woman next to him, but he couldn't even see her lips moving.

"Blink twice if you understand," the woman whispered again under breath.

Shinji was frozen in place, staring at the data on his computer screen, its meaning completely lost to him as his brain tried to process what he had just learned. Already, his eyes were glancing around the train car, trying to figure out who the possible assailants could be. The two men sitting across from him were obscured behind their newspapers, and impossible to read.

Could the men trying to kill him really be sitting so close to him?

"Mr. Ikari..." the woman whispered urgently.

Shinji swallowed hard. None of this made any sense! Why him? Why now!? What had he ever done to deserve this!? This was all happening too fast for him to keep up! This kind of cloak-and-dagger bullshit was well beyond what he signed up for with this job!

But one thing was for sure - he did not want to die just yet.

He took a shaky breath, and blinked his eyes two times in succession.

Before he could even blink a third time, the woman closed her hard-back book, before flinging it forward, sending it crumpling through the newspaper of the man sitting directly in front of her and impacting hard against his face, causing him to cry out in pain.

The other man dropped his paper, revealing the blade of a knife, which he immediately thrust right at Shinji's face!

Shinji had about half a millisecond to cry out before the point of the switchblade stopped inches from his face. The woman had caught the man's wrist in a tight grip with her left hand, and with her right, drove a knife-hand strike into the man's throat.

He flew backwards, gasping and clutching at his jugular, as Shinji could only stare at the woman in astonishment, as if time itself had slowed to a crawl.

In the commotion, her hat had flown off of her head and was slowly drifting to the floor to reveal a short cropped mane of blue hair that did not even look to be dyed, it appeared so natural. She moved like lightning, driving her elbow into the other man's temple before he could recover, before swiping her trench-coat off from around her shoulders to reveal a skintight black tank top with two pistols strapped to shoulder holsters, and a utility belt around her waist. She tossed her trench-coat into the air, just in time to block the view of four other armed assailants who rose from their chairs farther down the aisle and opened fire.

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!

Windows shattered and people screamed as the bullet-fire tore through walls of the Shinkansen. Shinji could only clutch his computer to his chest in fear while the woman who had been sitting next to him dove into the aisle, her shoulder slamming roughly into the floor, and withdrawing her two Beretta 92 handguns and fired off four shots down the aisle beneath her coat as it fell.

POW-POW-POW-POW!

As she tumbled, her reading glasses were flung from her face and shattered as they hit the floor.

Two of the men went down from the woman's attack, the other two ducking behind their seats.

The woman wasted no time in climbing to her feet, holstering one of her guns, and grabbing Shinji roughly by the arm.

"H-Hey!" he grunted in pain - she was much stronger than she looked - as he barely managed to keep hold of his laptop. "What's happening!? What are you doing!?"

"Get in front of me!" the woman commanded, shoving him bodily ahead of her before he could even respond as she ushered him hurriedly down the aisle to the end of the train car. As they reached the door between train cars, she slammed the butt of her hand into the door control panel, before wrapping her arm around Shinji's body.

"Get down!" she ordered, clutching him to her body and throwing herself through the door, twisting in mid-air to land on her back to cushion his fall, her other arm aiming her pistol down the aisle where they had come. The sound of gunfire erupted again as the assailants' slugs trailed by overhead as they fell, while the woman's keen shots found another mark.

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!

POW-POW!

Shinji, for his part, could only clench his eyes in terror.

"_What the hell's going on!?_" he shouted above the gunfire.

The door hissed shut behind them, closing them both off inside the short dark passageway between train-cars. The bullet train was slowing to a halt as a voice over the intercom was asking that everyone remain calm. The woman was still lying on her back, holding Shinji against her with one arm, the other still clutching her firearm.

"Are you hurt?" she asked down at him.

Shinji's eyes opened, and he only then noticed that in addition to her blue hair, the woman he was currently lying against had a pair of vibrant red eyes, making her gaze all the more intense as she directed it at him. His cheeks reddened under the scrutiny, but turned even redder when he became aware aware of the two very soft mounds he found his face nestled against.

"What the _hell!?_" he demanded in exasperation, lifting his head up as he planted his free hand against the floor and tried (unsuccessfully) to pry himself loose from her grip. "Who the hell _are_ these people!? And who the hell are _you!?_"

She finally released him, allowing Shinji to get shakily to his feet, his laptop still clutched in both arms.

"I am Rei Ayanami," she said simply as she got to her feet and made her way to the door that barred them from the outside. "First Child of NERV. And _you_ need to step away from that door."

Shinji just blinked. "Wha-?"

Shinji was nearly yanked off his feet as Rei grabbed him by the arm and slammed him against the wall by the exit just in time to avoid a hail of gunfire that tore through the door leading to the train car from whence they came.

"What the hell!?" Shinji shouted again in pure panic. "What do these people want!?"

"You, as it turns out," Rei said simply as she pried open the door latch, sounding the train alarm. "As do we."

The door flew open as a strong gust of wind tugged at Shinji's body causing him to stagger and nearly drop his laptop out the exit door down what he now saw was about a twenty foot drop to the concrete road below the elevated train tracks. The train had come to a stop over a residential area somewhere in the Kanegawa prefecture.

It was still mid-afternoon, and was an otherwise gorgeous day, and if not for the events that had brought him here, Shinji might have even tried to enjoy himself. As it was, Shinji backed away from the door instinctively, before bumping into Rei's resolutely grounded form.

"Wait a minute!" Shinji gasped in terror, looking back at her. "We're getting off _here!?_"

"Unless you'd prefer to remain aboard," Rei said dryly as she holstered her remaining gun.

Shinji thought he spotted a red convertible come tearing down the road towards them, before his attention was drawn to the sound of the doors behind him from the train cars being forcefully kicked in.

"Time to go," Rei said, before almost casually shoving him out of the train car to plummet, flailing and screaming, to the street below.

"AHHHHHHHHH!" he cried, twisting his arms as he tumbled past the tracks and towards the hard concrete twenty feet down.

Then there was a flash of red, and a sudden, uncomfortable WHUMP as Shinji impacted bodily with the black leather passenger seat of a red Maserati convertible.

"OOF!" Shinji let out a loud grunt of pain as stars danced before his eyes. He was sure he had broken something, and a cursory inspection revealed that it was indeed his laptop that had broken on the floor below him

Then a loud, brash voice crowed in triumph.

"And she makes the catch!" a female voice cried out. "The crowd goes wild!"

Shinji looked up to see a fiery red-head at the wheel of the car, wearing a black leather jacket, hip-hugging jeans and a pair of black shades. While the other woman was clearly of a Japanese descent, this girl was unquestionably foreign, her eyes round and her nose pointed in a way that was at the same time both very un-Japanese and somehow, very, very attractive.

"Ugh..." Shinji grunted, wondering how much more he would be having to deal with that day. "And who are you?"

"Asuka Langley Soryu!" she turned and winked playfully, glancing at him from over her sunglasses. "Second Child of NERV! And _you_ might might want to move back a bit, Mr. Ikari."

An odd sense of deja-vu caused Shinji to glance upward just in time to see a pair of black-clad legs connected to a lithe, trim body that came hurdling down towards him to land in his lap with a painful THWUMP!

"MMMMPH!" Shinji's face turned all but blue as Rei's backside landed squarely against his pelvic bone.

"Drive!" Rei snapped at Asuka, completely unfazed by the fall.

"What does it look like I'm doing!?" Asuka demanded, throwing the car into gear just in time to avoid the gunshots streaming in from the train-car above.

Tires screeched as Asuka barreled away from the elevated train tracks like a bat out of hell, darting around the vehicles in her path, causing the other two passengers to whip back and forth precariously. Rei kept one boot planted on the dashboard to secure herself in place as Asuka skidded around a corner and Shinji tried desperately to re-position himself so as to prevent Rei from further bruising his man-parts.

"Took you long enough!" Asuka complained, clutching the wheel with the red-painted nails, her eyes on the road. "I thought you said this was the early train!"

"It was," Rei replied, bracing herself against the car door. "We got held up in Yamanashi."

"Please..." Shinji muttered in pain. "Please get off me..."

"Apologies, Mr. Ikari," Rei commented offhandedly, not sounding apologetic at all. "But we are driving at speed."

"Heads up, Rei!" Asuka shouted, glancing into her rear-view mirror. "We've got company!"

As Shinji continued to try to somehow wiggle out from under Rei's body, the blue haired girl turned her head around to see the three black sedans speeding after them as cars on the street swerved to get out of their way. The car's occupants were thrown to the side when Asuka swerved to avoid a barrage of bullet fire as a number of the pursuing vehicles' occupants began leaning out the car windows to shoot at them.

"What the _hell!?_" Shinji cried for the third time that day as he ducked down below the head of the chair. "Who the hell wants me _dead_ this badly!?"

"Did you bring Lola?" Rei asked Asuka offhandedly, ignoring Shinji.

"Of _course_ I brought Lola!" Asuka said with a smirk on her face.

"Lola?" Shinji asked, not looking forward to any more surprises.

Shinji was then allowed a deep breath of fresh air as Rei finally rose off of him, but was promptly flattened once again as Rei twisted around to straddle his hips.

"Ugh...buh...wha...?" Shinji blurted, completely red-faced as he found Rei's piercing red eyes once again level with his, her blue hair tossing about in the wind along with his own. For a brief instant, she met his gaze, as if somehow daring him to make a move, before she propped her hands on his shoulders and leaned her body over his to reach into the Maserati's insubstantial back-seat. Shinji's breathing was all but cut off, as for the second time in as many minutes, he found himself with Rei's far from insubstantial bust pressed against his face.

Not for the first time that day, Shinji wondered if he was dreaming.

Then, all color promptly drained from his cheeks when Rei revealed what she had been reaching for: an SVD-63 sniper rifle.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa, _wait_ a minute!" Shinji stammered, eyes wide with fear as Rei sat back down on his lap, rifle in hand. "What the heck is _that!?_"

"Lola," Rei said by way of introduction.

She then drew back the action on her rifle, before laying the stock of the gun over Shinji's shoulder, aiming the barrel of the gun down the rear of the Maserati at their pursuers as they skidded to keep up with Asuka's break-neck driving. Rei wrapped her right arm around Shinji's head to reach the trigger, and laid bodily against him to nestle the stock of the gun against her shoulder.

"Wha-wha-what are you doing!?" Shinji demanded, not sure where to put his hands.

"Could you please not scuff up the leather-work, Rei?" Asuka requested anxiously. "I just had this car reupholstered."

"Try not to move too much," Rei requested dryly, before taking her sights and pulling the trigger.

It was a _lot_ louder than the pistols.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Shinji reeled! The force of the Dragunov going off next to his ears was _excruciating_! It was like having his head bashed in with each shot! How Rei managed it was utterly beyond him, but at that moment, all he wanted was for it to end!

"_Stop it!_" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "_Stop the car! I'm getting off! I didn't sign up for this! You're all crazy, you hear me!?_"

Rei kept shooting in spite of his cries, and even managed to take out the driver of one of their assailants, causing the car to careen off the road. Half of what Shinji had been screaming was drowned out by the gunfire, but Asuka seemed to get the gist of it.

"Oh, don't be such a baby!" the redhead crowed cheerfully as she drifted around the next corner, nimbly dodging enemy bullet-fire. "You've got a gorgeous girl sitting in your lap with a marksman's rifle, and all you want to do is jump ship? You're no fun at all!"

For half a second, Shinji tried to consider the way the blue-haired girl's thighs squeezed his hips, or the suppleness of her bosom as it pressed against his chest. This thought was quite literally blown away by another round of gunfire as Rei took down another one of their pursuers.

_BANG! BANG!_

"_I don't care!_" Shinji declared, shouting like a mad-man. "_It's not worth dying for! __Somebody get me out of here! HEEELP!_"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Sounds like our charge has had enough, Rei."

The blue-haired girl gave the driver a look that almost seemed disappointed.

"Very well," she said, ejecting her last spent round from her SVD.

Asuka smiled widely, before turning the wheel so hard, the car nearly spun out. The car continued to skid on its tires, going sideways down the road, leaving Asuka in plain view of the pursuing vehicle. Unfortunately for them, it was then that Asuka withdrew an Uzi sub-machine-gun from between her legs, pointed it over the driver's side door, and began to unload the entire clip into the last car.

The entire front bumper of the unfortunate black sedan completely peeled off from the bullet-fire, before a lucky round found one of the car's front tires, causing a blow-out that caused the car to flip over forwards, tumbling into a smoking wreck.

With a haughty smirk, Asuka put her foot on the gas, and sped off once again down the road.

* * *

By the time they made it to the highway, Rei had finally climbed off of Shinji, and the two of them sat side by side, sharing the seat. It was awkward, but not nearly as awkward as their last two or three positions had been. Shinji was fairly certain he had tiny spirals where his eyes should have been.

In spite of the earlier chaos, however, the feel of the wind whipping at his hair as the convertible sped down the highway as the late afternoon sun slowly began to descend towards the horizon was really doing wonders for his nerves.

It really was beautiful day.

"You really named your gun 'Lola?'" Shinji asked, disbelievingly.

"She names all her guns," Asuka snorted, wryly. "Just ask her what she calls her sidearms."

Rei withdrew her two matching Berreta 92 hand-guns.

"Say hello to Samson and Delilah," Rei said, a hint of pride in her voice.

Shinji couldn't help but shy away. "Charmed..."

"Heh," Asuka snorted. "Just wait till you meet Vicki."

"Do not make fun," Rei retorted, holstering the weapons. "Vicki has gotten the two of us out of a good deal of trouble."

Asuka wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, and gotten us _into_ far worse trouble. And hey, not that it wasn't some damn fine shooting - and that _was_ some damn fighting shooting back there - but did you _really_ need to round second base with Mr. Ikari here in order to do it?"

Shinji's face colored once again. Rei simply looked befuddled.

"It was the most efficient solution to gain a steady firing position and keep Mr. Ikari covered," she said, matter of factly. "It seems to me that it was the most logical solution at the time."

"I don't know about that," Shinji muttered, gingerly touching his ears. "Are my ears bleeding? I feel like I burst an eardrum."

Rei inspected the side of his head, appraisingly. "I do not see any blood."

Asuka cracked her neck, one hand on the wheel. "Nothing a little dip in a pool of L2 won't cure!"

Shinji raised an eyebrow. "L2?"

Rei threw the other woman furtive glance. "Asuka, Mr. Ikari has not yet been cleared for that level of intel."

"Ah, he'll be cleared for it soon enough," the redhead snorted. "What's the harm?"

Rei looked away, nose wrinkled. "It is the principle of the matter."

Asuka might have begun harping on the other girl for being such a stick in the mud, but at that moment, Shinji seemed to recall his one and only carry-on item that he had made it off the train with.

"Ahhhhhh!" he cried out, though it sounded like more of a whimper. "My computer!"

Asuka winced in sympathy as he picked up what was left of his laptop from the floor of the passenger's seat. It's screen was hanging by a single wire, and its keyboard was missing most of its keys. Shinji tried desperately to piece it back together as Rei inspected the remains with a curious eye.

"It would not appear that the computer was equal to the task of assisting in our departure from the bullet train," Rei commented dryly, poking at the smoking remains with her finger. "Poor thing. It did not deserve such a fate."

"Ohhhh...umm...don't worry..." Asuka smiled hesitantly, not sure how to amend the situation. "I'm sure NERV will spring for getting you a new one..."

"You don't understand..." Shinji shuddered in disbelief, his lower lip quivering. "My work...three months of research..."

Rei clapped her hands together, closed her eyes and began reciting a Buddhist prayer in low tones as though performing funereal rites for the deceased computer.

Shinji looked like he was about ready to cry.

"NERV will do everything it can to salvage the data on that hard drive," Asuka assured him earnestly. "Don't worry, Mr. Ikari. Whatever's on there is probably just as important to us as it is to you."

Shinji gave Asuka curious look. "Wait...is _that_ why I got dragged into all this?"

"Sort of..." Asuka looked uncertain. "How much did Katsuragi brief you on, anyway?"

"Not much," Shinji admitted. "She just said I was going into protective custody."

Rei and Asuka exchanged a curious glance.

"Protective custody?" Asuka asked, sounding confused.

Shinji winced as he set the two separate halves of his computer on the floor.

"Yeah," he scoffed. "Though if _this_ is the kind of protection I can expect, then I'm starting to reconsider my options. But then again, if today proves anything, it's that I'm going to damn well need it."

Rei and Asuka didn't respond. They were both looking to the other for some kind of queue, as if neither was sure how much they should reveal to him at once.

Shinji blinked, uneasily. "What, what is it?"

"The Captain did not tell you?" Rei asked inquisitively. "About why she recruited you?"

"Recruited me?" Shinji blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

Rei gave Asuka an alarmed expression. Asuka, for her part, just shrugged helplessly.

"Might as well tell him," she said, in a resigned tone.

Shinji knit his brow. "Tell me what?"

Rei pursed her lip, clearly conflicted between going against protocol, and doing right by their future comrade in arms.

Finally, she took a breath and spoke to him with earnest eyes.

"You are Shinji Ikari," Rei said simply. "Third Child of NERV."

* * *

To be continued...

* * *

A/N: Seeing as how my last couple of fics were kind of melodramatic and bittersweet, I was in the mood for writing a fic that didn't mind cutting loose and having some fun now and then. Not sure if all future chapters will be as fun as this one, but I wanted to set a tone that had a bit of comedy, danger, philosophy, darkness, wit, sex, over-the-top-action, and all around...well..._fun!_

Rei's character in this fic is inspired in two parts by Revy from Black Lagoon and Kirika from NOIR. Asuka, meanwhile, will be borrowing a bit from Haruhara Haruko from FLCL and maybe a bit of Yoko from Gurren Lagann. Just imagine that the creative minds behind Black Lagoon, NOIR, FLCL and Gurren Lagann all decided to collaborate on re-creating Evangelion, and go from there. That's kind of what I'm shooting for here.

Stay tuned!


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